


Read My Mind

by goingtoalaska



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, confession of feelings, implied grand theft auto, magical thinking, unsafe driving practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9060862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingtoalaska/pseuds/goingtoalaska
Summary: "You just said 'hey, let's go for a drive' and I came with you because I assumed the universe was going to happen to us. So far you're the only thing that's happened to us.”





	

Here was the ritual:

First, you needed a car. It had to be a car radio, or it wasn't the same, and it wouldn't work. And it needed programmable buttons – the movement between stations had to be swift and decisive, no sliding or adjusting or interim static. Older car radios were better, though the new ones would do in a pinch. 

You had to be driving. You didn't need to be trying to go anywhere in particular – the destination would suggest itself regardless of your intentions. But sitting in the vehicle stationary, even with the engine on? That would get you nothing. Dirk had once gotten the word “no” from three separate stations before he gave up.

Then you needed to focus. This was the essential part. This was where the magic happened. It was fine if the radio was already on a different station – slightly better, in fact, than silence – but your focus needed to be entirely on the question. Live the question, breathe the question, imbue the question with as much depth as you can. If it was about a person (and when was it not about a person, really) you needed as many details as you could muster. Not autobiography – name/age/gender were weak talismans. The pitch and timbre of their voice. The precise colour of their eyes – shade in as many comparisons as you could. If it was the sea on a clear, sunny day, so much the better. The smell of their hair, the exact angle of their smile, the colour of their aura, the way they moved (wringing / gliding / flicking / slashing) – you held all this in the centre of your mind, you let it fill your head and your chest and inflate your body to the very tips of your fingers and toes.

You did your best, and this was important, to also drive your car around all the obstacles you encountered. The ritual did not work if you crashed and died. 

That summoning, that was the background. It could not be rushed, or the ritual would be pointless. The object of your question had to live and breathe in your consciousness before the question could even be considered. But once it did -

The question had to be about you, mostly. The ritual was about subjective insight and advice, and you were automatically implicated in whatever wisdom it brought you. The question can be: What should I do? The question can be: Will this hurt? The question can be: Should I? The question can be: What if I do? 

The question needs to be quick. The subject must be dwelt on at length, careful, loving brushstrokes, but the question is delivered deftly, like signing for a parcel, or opening the fridge. The question is almost, but (importantly) not exactly synonymous with the pressing of the button.

The button must be pressed with an exhalation. This was essential.

The answer will be given. You knew immediately if the ritual had failed, because you knew while you were doing it that your heart was not in it. Something arbitrary will be on. Maybe a song you like. The ritual can be re-attempted, but only with great focus. The more failures, the less likely you'll succeed. 

You will know your success by the way the sound resonates in your bones. It is your work to interpret the information provided, because you as filter is the blood and bone of the ritual. If it's the feeling that strikes you, the feeling is the message. If it's the words, the words are the message. If it's a ridiculous sound effect in the background of an ad, so be it. You have your answer. 

Reflect.

The ritual need not be completed alone. The ritual can be done in the company of its subject. This can even be beneficial, so long as the subject does not interfere with the process. 

“Dirk, stop staring at the radio, you're going to kill us.”

Dirk looked up in time to swerve around a row of hedges that had been getting alarmingly close. 

“New car. Don't know how to - ”

“Let me try.”

“No!” Dirk batted his hand away from the radio like a cat striking at a ball of string and Todd recoiled into his seat, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry. I'm just – “

“Being weird?”

He considered this for a moment. “Yes, that's a good way of putting it.”

“Cool. Let me know if I can help.” 

Todd relaxed back into his seat, gazing at the scenery. Dirk couldn't help but glance sideways, studies the artful ruffling of his hair, the clean line of his jaw, the skin across his throat down to the collar of his shirt and -

“Dirk!”

Screech of tires – they narrowly avoided a street light. Todd was definitely looking at him funny now.

“You're driving worse than usual. What's up?”

“I can't think of the question,” Dirk answered, not actually meaning to. Do not under any circumstances explain the ritual to the subject. This alters the ritual irreparably. “The right question, I mean,” he continued, grateful for his hands being on the wheel and his eyes being on the road because they were his biggest tells. “To ask.”

“To ask who? Me?”

“No! To – ask – Amanda.” 

“What're you asking Amanda?”

Dirk swallowed hard. Why was he so bad under pressure? He'd spent the majority of his life under pressure, he ought to be better at it by now. Say something normal. Say something normal. Say something - “To marry me.” 

A glance sideways at Todd's face indicated that this hadn't been the best course of action.

“I mean. Not that.”

“You want to marry Amanda.” Todd's mouth twitched. “Well. Who am I to stand in the way of true love?”

“No. Todd. Listen.”

“I support you, Dirk,” Todd said gravely. “I support you and Amanda getting married and buying a house and having lots and lots of sex and babies -”

Dirk made a sound like a cat being stepped on and nearly crashed the car into an embankment. He wrested control back over the vehicle and pulled over amid a chorus of blaring horns from their fellow motorists. They sat in silence for a moment or two. 

“Todd,” Dirk said, very carefully. “I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry, but do you remember just before? When I said that I was going to ask Amanda to marry me?” 

“I do remember, Dirk. I'm so looking forward to being your brother-in-law.”

“Okay. Well. Listen. That was a lie.”

Todd gasped.

“I know! I know! But it wasn't me that lied, it was my – treacherous idiot mouth!”

“Dirk -”

“I'm sorry, Todd, I really am, I can't believe I've done this _again_ -”

“Dirk.”

“But I didn't mean it, really, and I wasn't going to – to keep trying to make it true, I just - “

Sudden warmth jolted him out of this particular demented thought-spiral – Todd had grabbed him by the face, palms against his cheeks, and was smiling in that particular way he had where Dirk's not sure if he finds him exasperating or endearing. Dirk took a breath, thoughts stilled entirely, heart full of the warm/rough/careful touch of his fingers and the luminous blue of his eyes and the way his presence just _glowed_ on Dirks' radar, the gravity of him, centre of his own magnetic field -

“I'm messing with you.”

“Oh.” Dirk exhaled hard. “Thank God.” 

“Sorry. I thought you – knew.” 

“I'm a psychic, not a mind-reader.” And Todd hesitated a little, something flickering across his face, and Dirk looked up with a start. “You don't think I can -”

“I don't know! I wondered if maybe you could?” A vaguely defensive gesture. “I don't know what psychics can do!” 

“No mind-reading. God, I wish.” Easier than reading a radio. 

“Really? You'd want that?”

“God, yeah. Wouldn't you?” 

“No. Absolutely not. It'd be – invasive.”

“I wouldn't use it to be invasive! I'd only use it to make sure people weren't angry with me. Or - or I'd check what sort of mood people were in, so I could behave in a way that suited that mood! Or I'd see if they needed something, or I'd find out if they – wanted me around, at all, or they were just ... being polite. It'd be nice,” he added. “Nice not to worry, for a little while.”

Todd was staring at him. “Is that an English thing? I've never worried about any of that.” 

“Well, it's different for you.” 

“Because I'm American?”

“Because you're wonderful.” Shit. “I mean. Nobody would – not – want you to – be around. Probably. I mean, based on – you have friends, and people – who like you – and – purely from an objective -”

“I'll take that as a compliment.” Todd was smiling, a little oddly. “Dirk, what's up? You're about eight notches weirder than usual today.”

“I'm offended.”

“No, you're not.”

It was beginning to get a little annoying, Todd knowing him well enough to call him on his bullshit.

“No. I am weirder than usual. It's the case.”

“We don't have a case. You just said 'hey, let's go for a drive' and I came with you because I assumed the universe was going to happen to us. So far you're the only thing that's happened to us.”

“The universe is very ineffable, Todd.”

“Is it.”

“Extremely ineffable. Almost impossible, in fact, to, er -” Dirk gave up. “Eff. Look, I know I'm being weird. It's nothing bad, I just don't want to tell you about it.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Todd shrugged at him. “I've come this far, haven't I? I trust you.” 

And with that effortless grin of his, Todd leaned forward and turned on the radio. Dirk was too shocked to even try to stop him. It was a good stereo. Some kind of synthesizer filled the car with a sustained chord that sent Dirk's heart into his throat. 

_“ - it's funny how you just break down, waiting on some sign -”_

Here is the ritual: the car must be moving, the question must be formed, you must press the button with knowledge and forethought. 

“I love this song.” Todd was drumming his fingers on the dashboard.

_“- with magic soaking my spine -”_

Here is the ritual: the subject must be prevented from interfering with the ritual. Todd singing along, under his breath, and Dirk turned wondering eyes to him, there on the side of the highway out of Seattle. 

_“- can you read my mind?”_

Here is the ritual: the answer will come if you are prepared to read it.

Todd was looking at him with something different in his eyes. He couldn't hear the song anymore, just the drumming of his heartbeat in his ears.

Here is the ritual: there's no point doing the ritual if you're not brave enough to do what it tells you.

“Todd?”

“Yeah?”

“Here's the proof that I can't read your mind. I am – bowled over, by you. Flattened. Shipwrecked. Your eyes kill me. I'm lost. You're wonderful.” There was a strange kind of calm here, at the centre of the most difficult thing he'd ever said out loud. “And if I could read your mind, then I'd know for certain whether or not there was any hope. And if there wasn't, I'd guard this secret with my life until the day that I died. And if there was, I'd already be kissing you, I'd have kissed you the minute you felt anything beyond friendship for me. What I would not do is drive aimlessly around with you in a stolen car trying to coerce the universe into telling me whether or not you want to kiss me even half as much as I want to kiss you, and what I absolutely would not do after that is make an enormous embarrassing speech about it, so I think you can take the general happenings today as a sign that when it comes to your thoughts, I am as much in the dark as the rhododendron bush I ran over not ten minutes ago.”

The car was quiet. Todd must have turned the radio off. Dirk's eyes were fixed on the horizon and there was no force on the planet that could make him meet Todd's eyes at that moment. His entire chest felt like it was full of bees.

“Dirk Gently.”

“Yes?”

“Did you steal this car?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, twisted in his seat, looked at Todd with desperation. This was it. This was the end. He couldn't possibly survive this. He was going to be politely rejected and his entire body would just crumple in on itself like a soda can at the bottom of the Mariana trench.

The corner of Todd's mouth twitched.

“Are you -” Dirk's heart stopped. “Are you messing with me?” 

“It's kind of mean, isn't it?” Todd's hands were suddenly on Dirk's face again and anything he might have said, or thought, or comprehended was obliterated entirely by the blue of his eyes and the touch of his breath against his lips. “I'm not going to do a big speech.”

“That's okay,” Dirk managed to croak. “Cut to the chase, I always say.” Todd was impossibly close, leaned over the divide between the seats, here on the side of the road in a borrowed car, and Dirk was frozen, heartbeat drumming wildly in his ears, absolutely nothing in his head but the roar of static, and when Todd kissed him he could hardly respond – felt the warm brush of his lips strike him like lightning, felt his entire body seize up -

“Dirk?” Todd murmured against his lips, a note of concern creeping into his voice. He shifted away a little, sat back in his seat and Dirk could see stars beginning to crowd out his vision and he was very, very lightheaded – and the universe was sort of spiralling around him – how interesting – “Dirk. Breathe in.”

“What?” he attempted to ask, but instead took a great, shuddering gasp of air, realizing as he did so that he hadn't inhaled for some time. The stars faded from his vision. Todd didn't.

“Did you – just -”

“I did not just forget to breathe,” Dirk said with as game an attempt at dignity as he could muster while discreetly panting for breath. Turning the key in the ignition, he made a great show of checking his mirrors then pulled sedately into traffic. Driving time. Time to drive. If he was driving he couldn't have a heart attack. People who were driving didn't have heart attacks. 

“You are bright red.”

“I am not.” 

There was a long silence in the car. 

“For the record -” Todd cleared his throat. “For the record. I've – uh – wanted you – this – wanted to kiss you for a long time. And my plan was – was to keep that a secret until I died, and probably beyond that. You're – brave. You're kind of incredibly brave. And good. And I spent a lot of time worrying – that it was a bad idea – things like this get – complicated – but god, my life since you walked into it, how much more complication could possibly be added by – just – but I'm getting ahead of myself, and probably freaking you out, and I'm gonna – be quiet – and – look, where are we actually going?”

“I have no idea,” Dirk said, casting a sidelong glance at Todd. “I've been lost since about five minutes after we left.”

Todd laughed. Dirk pulled the car over again, earning a few blaring horns from the traffic around them. As the engine settled: “I thought you didn't do speeches.”

“That wasn't a speech. It was – thinking out loud.”

“I never think any other way.” Dirk hesitated. “Can I – kiss you? Again? I was distracted before by nearly dying.”

Todd grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, almost garotting him with his seatbelt, and kissed him until he saw stars again, blazing like diamonds cut out of the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> The song is Read My Mind by the Killers and has been stuck in my head for about four days.


End file.
